


Velvet Beartrap

by bluemooning



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 00:30:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9467402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluemooning/pseuds/bluemooning
Summary: Even broken things deserve love, too.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not completely sure where this is going but that's ok

Ushijima has no heart, or so he has been told - nothing displayed so easily on his sleeve, to be shown and used and torn to shreds by the capricious wiles of another. It might be a blessing in disguise, this camouflage he wears so well. It’s enough to be mistaken for a stoic sort of handsome, the kind that gets girls on the street giggling to themselves. They pass him by and sneak a glance at his height, his muscles - and then in the next moment, they have already  gone. So in this way, in the end, their opinion made no difference.

The world around him is dim with grayness. The library is slow at this hour - a computer lit up here and there, notes spread out upon a desk. There’s a guy with ashen hair, chatting to - to a friend? Their conversation is muted, and Ushijima can only pretend to know what they are saying. They catch his eye and somehow his focus stays.

He watches them move in lethargy - fitting with the overcast sky, the persistent drizzle keeping the windows fogged. From far away, someone sighs.

Ushijima returns to his work, or so he would like to think. His first college essay has been assigned to him just a couple days ago - he picked the topic himself. And somehow, he finds himself reading research paper after paper, to find the solution to something that never ought to be solved. The outline of his first draft was good enough, or so he thought. But to unlock these secrets feels like something he does not deserve. He’s not sure why.

Outside, the rain picks up. Ushijima can hear it come down harder on the roof, rattling the walls around him. He shivers in his sweater, the wool knit not enough to keep him warm. But maybe, the chill started from inside him - and then, if that were true, wouldn’t that be terribly hopeless?

His fingers skitter over the keyboard, restless. The computer screen has suddenly become too bright, burning past his eyes and into his brain. It’s far too early for this.

The two guys in the corner are moving, whispering - and then the one with ashen hair gets up, and starts walking away from Ushijima.

And then it hits him, in a great wave of recognition, he _knows_ , he sees it in how that man moves and speaks - all the little mannerisms that make a person their own. All at once, he remembers that final autumn season, less than a year ago and yet so far in the past. That face - those eyes - unable to back down, and unwilling to do so. In that moment, there was no difference between the two.

Somehow, pinning down this restless feeling doesn’t help to soothe Ushijima. Frankly, he doesn’t know what will help, only that he has just abandoned his workstation, and begun to follow Sugawara Koushi through the silent library. The shelves around them are brimming over with the words of dead men, and as the seconds tick by, Ushijima finds himself falling deeper into their ancient influence.

Suga stops, turns into the stacks. His gaze travels up and down, reading the spines - selecting a book, and then another. He flips through their pages, overwhelmed with rapt silence.

And then, Ushijima makes his move.

He advances fast and faster on Suga, causing the latter to very nearly drop his books. They tumble in his hands and he catches them just in time. His slender fingers hold them close to his chest, pressed up vertical to his cream-white shirt, slightly wrinkled - the collar asymmetrical and the tips trembling.

“Ushiwaka,” says Suga, and Ushijima can’t even pretend that the name bothers him - because from this moment on, it doesn’t. His tongue has gone dry in his mouth, suddenly very still and unable to articulate words. Somehow, he pulls them out, one by one.

“I didn’t know you went here,”

Suga’s eyes crinkle at the corners. He breaks out his teeth in his muted laughter, volume controlled within the walls of the library and the quietness it imposes. It’s more like a single note - a giggle - before he remembers, too.

He cracks another smile. “Imagine...me, going to the same university as the great Ushiwaka…” Suga’s words fade into the space between them, leaving it faintly sweeter.

Ushijima finds himself drawn to it, pulled forward by a power not his own. He allows himself a couple footsteps more - his movement in time with the beating of his iron heart - full of passion and too strong to ever break. Cold to the touch and unfitting for the world to know.

They have all been wrong, he thinks, all of them, the world beyond his small bubble of family and friends, the people who think him to be an absolute pillar of strength. Because in this moment, he is so weak - and painfully so.

Something is rising in his gut, hot and twisting him into knots. Blood pumps in his ears and make it impossible to hear, until all he can sense of the space around him is sight - what he can see of Suga in front of him, wide eyed and lips full, daring in their presentation. The books slip from his grasp and fall with a muted thud on the carpet beneath them.

Ushijima can feel it in his bones, this desire growing in him, threatening to make him burst and shatter all at once, until his shell breaks into a million tiny pieces -

\- and then, maybe then, he will find a heart buried in the wreckage, bruised and weakened but very much intact -

\- but before he can think to awaken such feelings from their long slumber, Suga squats down in one easy motion, gathering up his books, whispering goodbye and hurrying away, far from the stacks and where Ushijima stands stock-still. There was barely any time for him to react.

Deep inside him, he can feel the echo of his heartbeat, threatening to bubble to the surface.

* * *

 

“Sugawara?” says Tendou, with a bread roll partway to his mouth, “Of course I remember him!”

He crams half the roll in, and starts to chew. His restless eyes dart from place to place and never seem to settle. But in the next second, his gaze lands on Ushijima - and then, miraculously, it stays.

“What about him?” he presses onward, through a mouthful of bread.

Ushijima doesn’t answer at first. Instead, he looks out over the scenery in front of them - a concrete plaza, one of many at their university. The gray slabs are still damp and seem to deter others from coming out here, and spending their lunch hour in the midst of fresh air and sunshine. The rain clouds from earlier have given way to a light blue sky, though the air has yet to fully warm up. It’s the perfect excuse to explain the shiver down Ushijima’s spine - something that came of it’s own accord and in one great shudder.

“He goes here,”

Tendou nearly spits out his bread. “Really??!?”

Ushijima nods once. His thousand yard stare is absolute. “And I saw him in the library,”

At this, Tendou scoffs - and this time, crumbs fly from his open mouth. He claps a hand over his face in an attempt at displaying decorum. It’s an act he is bound to break character in - not a matter of if his facade will crumble, but when.

“Of course,” he says, after he has chewed and swallowed. The last half of his bread is still in his hands. He eyes it hungrily, but it’s debatable what he, exactly, hungers for. “Of course he was in the library,”

He brings the roll up to his mouth, chews and swallows more. The quiet returned and it gave Ushijima space to sort out his racing thoughts, of that first flash of recognition - of his pursuit of Suga, through the stacks - of how his chest grew tight in their short meeting, until he might have liked to tear his heart out, just to make it stop.

“Hello?” Tendou’s voice cuts into the air - and then he’s up in Ushijima’s face, eyes bugging out and living up to his old nickname, and all it entails. In a way, it will never leave him. “Earth to Wakatoshi?”

“I’m fine,” says Ushijima, and it’s enough to soothe Tendou, at least for now. He sits back down on the bench and sighs. His gaze silently meanders back to Ushijima.

“You sure?”

“Of course,”

It’s amazing, how his voice doesn’t falter. He’s shivering like mad on the inside and it doesn’t show, not at all.

Honestly, this is unnatural of him. He’s too good at telling the truth but in the end, that will surely be his downfall. And before his carefully crafted front can dare to break - before it all bursts out in a flood of words, he focuses his attention back to the pale sky. While Tendou chatters on, the sun peeks out behind a stray cloud, shining brilliant beams into their midst. Their light catches Ushijima’s eye, and before he can stop himself, he’s drawn a parallel to ashen hair and hazel-brown eyes - beautiful and utterly mesmerizing and gone by the time he blinks.


End file.
